I treated myself to a new helmet as my existing Arai is over 10 years old, although it is still in excellent condition and testament to Arai quality, so I’ll continue to use it.
I wanted a modular (flip up) helmet and chose the Shark as it was one of the very few where the chin piece can be folded all the way back to the rear of the helmet so it can be worn as both a full face and open face helmet without having the chin bar stuck up in the air.
The chin bar is easy to move back one handed but closing it again is a two handed job so you’ll need to be stopped before trying to revert back to full face.
The quality seems fine, all the mechanisms work smoothly and it’s nicely finished and it’s comfortable to wear. It also accommodates my specs without a problem. I can’t really comment on how quiet it is as I always wear ear plugs, so all helmets seem quiet to me! It also has an integral drop down sun visor which is quite handy and easy to operate via a slider on the top of the helmet.
Nope, I’ve got a red and black Bell but I do have a white Shark Evoline 2 or 3 tucked away somewhere which is about six or seven years old now. I’d only had it about two weeks when a dragonfly or something similarly meaty came through the chin vent, knocking out the vent which I lost on the road. Good job I had my gob shut as my lips etc were covered in green dragonfly guts. I repaired the vent mesh but I always found that the Evoline let in a lot of flies and several wasps.
It does remind me of the time I was riding along and realised a wasp was walking around the inside of my visor. I quickly opened it up hoping that the airflow would blast him away, but nope the little bugger was determined to hang on. I had to stop and carefully remove the helmet but he must have flown off at that point.
You didn’t happen to have the neotec one did you?
I’m looking for a new flip and as the first is sweet, i was thinking of the 2?
Just to see difference between etc!
Thank you for any advice!
I do have an arai full face too btw which was a present for my 50th but I do still prefer the shoei .
I did a fair amount of research before settling on a lid and the Shoei Neotec 2 and Schuberth C5 always seem to come out on top, but neither allow you to completely fold away the chin bar and they are also very expensive, more than twice the price of the Shark.
Looks good and definitely matches your bike . The only issue I had with my Shark was the drop down visor used to clip the very end of my nose on it’s way down and make me jump a bit, even when I was braced for it .
Not sure why, this is the most recent photo of me I could find just for reference.
Following a ride out this week I did the usual cleaning of all the dead bugs from the visor and while doing this found that I had a couple of squashed bugs on the inside of the visor as well. As the weather is warm I’d been riding some of the time with the visor open - so decided to clean the inside part as well.
The Evo-ES doesn’t have a pin lock insert, it has an anti-fog coating - an important point that I had forgotten about. While wiping it over with a damp soft cloth, the inner surface of the visor became a smudgy mess and I was left with no choice other than spend a lot of time cleaning off all the anti-fog coating which I eventually managed so the visor is all nice and clear again now.
The downside is that the visor now has no ant-misting coating on it. This probably isn’t a great loss as I’d previously discovered in the colder weather that it doesn’t really work anyway as the visor mists up very quickly if the weather is cold. You can’t fit a pin lock as there isn’t space for one due to the way the chin bar/visor mechanism works. In addition, the visor will only remain in its set position if its either fully open or closed - any other position and it will snap shut if riding over 50mph or you hit a large bump, so you can’t leave it slightly open for venting.
Basically the whole visor mechanism is seriously flawed and the anti-fog coating means you can’t clean the inside of the visor without messing it up - additionally, the anti-fogging doesn’t work very well anyway.
There’s much about this helmet that I like - The overall quality is pretty good; it fits me well and feels comfortable; the drop down sun visor works well; I really like the fact that the chin bar can be completely rotated to the back of the helmet meaning it can be worn as both a full-face helmet or a fully open helmet, and you can actually do this one handed while on the move (although its probably not recommended).
Overall the visor flaws aren’t enough to stop me using it, but they are enough that I wouldn’t buy it again.
Gosh that does not sound very good. Must admit I looked at the Shark, but the helmet guy in the shop pointed me at the LS2, which has proved to be brilliant. Thanks for posting.
. The only issue I had with my Shark was the drop down visor used to clip the very end of my nose on it’s way down and make me jump a bit, even when I was braced for it 
